Chasing the Evening Shadows
by Kunosenpai
Summary: We all know the outcome of the final fight against Saffron. But if things had gone differently? Would Ranma have fought, would he have saved Akane in spite of everything, or rather would he have given in to madness? - Translated by: Bebbe5 - CHAPTER 3 UP!
1. When you daydream

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**Preliminary notes**: What if…?, Spoiler. Places and characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi.  
The story you're going to read refers back to the final chapter of the manga, so it would be recommendable a view on it by those who only know the anime (and a more general knowledge of the Saffron's saga).

I'm very grateful to my beta **Tiger eyes** for the corrections, the advices, the helpfulness. And for this English version of the story I am to **Bebbe5**, who masterfully translated it from Italian. Thanks to them as well, I can now wish you to enjoy the read as usual!

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_Forse perché della fatal qu__ïete_  
_Tu sei l'imago a me sì cara vieni_  
_O sera!_

_"__Alla sera"  
Ugo Foscolo_

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_Perhaps because you are the image  
Of the silence of the grave, I cherish when you come to me  
O Evening!_

_"Nightfall"  
Ugo Foscolo  
(Translation by John Hobbins)_

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**Chapter 1: **

**"When you daydream"**

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_She wasn't breathing_.

Ranma tried to push that atrocious thought away from him like it was an imaginary enemy. But even defeating Saffron had been easier, he had to admit, as the idea came back to torment him with even more assiduity, relying on the fact that it corresponded to a _real _data.

Akane wasn't breathing.

"All this just because you had tried to save me…"

He saw her one more time. Her, turning the Kinjakan, stopping the water of the Jusendo spring and preventing the filaments of the phoenix-prince from extending more.

"… but it was none of your business."

He saw his fiancé vanishing once more from his view, again he saw _her _clothes suddenly starting to flutter in the air just to finally end in his arms.

Then nothing more. Darkness had swallowed him in its jaws.

In an istant, everything was over.

"Akane, you fool…"

He abruptly stopped. Then, without thinking too much about it, he landed a violent fist on his own self. He had deserved it, and she couldn't have landed it on him

_(she won't be able to land it on him anymore)_

in his place.

"No, I'm sorry…"

Ranma took a deep breath.

"As a matter of fact, what I wanted to tell you is… _thank you_."

And he kept on talking to her.

He convinced himself that those words wouldn't have been thrown to the wind, because she would've listened to him. Because it couldn't _really _be all over.

"I'm sorry… I'm not good at this stuff. I can never be sincere, so I just end up insulting you and getting you mad…"

He was doing it. For the first time, he was opening his heart to her, revealing her the thoughts he had never been able to remove from the prison of his own pride and his own shyness. That's why… that's why, now, she could _not _do him the wrong of not listening to him… could she?

"Wake up, Akane… there's something I want to tell you… you can hear me, can't you?"

Surely it was like this. Of course she could hear him

_(she won't be able to hear him anymore).  
_  
She _had to _listen to him.

_I want to tell you that I love you!_

But…

_(Never again.)  
_  
Things were different.

_(Never again.)  
_  
She wouldn't have been able to do it again.

_(neveragainneveragainneveragainneveragain…)  
_  
"AKANEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

She would never answer him.

Because everything was over _for real_.

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He opened his eyes. A darkness deeper than the one of his own shut eyelids enveloped him. Little by little his view got used to its surroundings. He concluded that the unreal quietness in which he had sunk meant that dawn was yet to come, that the others tenants of the house were still dominated by the torpor of a motionless sleep. Maybe a 'refreshing' one, he absent-mindedly thought recalling the commonplace, but mostly motionless.

Silence. No sign of life. The new day was still _dead, _so his protagonists seemed to be as well. He himself must have been that way, even if only for a few minutes. On the other hand, lately, he had lost the will to sleep. Also because, those few times he gave way to weariness, he had _that_ dream again. And he would have preferred to stay eternally awake instead.

Dreams are weird. Premonitory hints of what is going to be, they believed since the dim and distant past. The mirror of the soul, they say nowadays. The reflection of your own fears. Or of forbidden desires. Or also, far more easily, _memories, _even if distorted by your emotions.

Which one was his specific case, was plain to him. Sure, he didn't understand much about psychoanalysis or headshrinker's stuff like that, he, but he sensed that in the end there wasn't much to understand.

Plainly, he hated to repeat that dream. He mostly hated the moment of the awakening. And even more, the moment when his awareness completely recovered and came back to distinguish imagination from reality. The confusion provoked by the end of the sleeping lasted many, too many seconds, and this made separating the one from the other harder. The dark of the night, in this context, surely didn't help.

So why he didn't escape that? Getting up, turning on the light: these actions would've established an efficient method for shaking himself from the ghosts who haunted his darkness.

He had remained in the same spot instead, enveloped by the shadows at the base of the stairs, keeping the almost fetal position he had assumed during his sleep. He felt something inside of him which pushed him not to move, which encouraged him to insist on keeping his position, the nape of the neck on the arm pressed on the second step, despite the aching muscles which, having woken up, were asking for respite in vain.

He wouldn't have moved. He was waiting for something. He was listening intently, as if he wanted to challenge the silence which was dominating his surroundings and to catch even the slightest noise which the night would've unintentionally let out. It was, truly, during moments like that one that he waited with more conviction: maybe because of his instinct, maybe because he was confused by his drowsiness.

The others wouldn't have understood. He couldn't explain. He could only wait. That something would've come. He would've been ready.

And finally it happened.

He won his challenge.

As always.

As _almost _always.

First he heard a dull noise. Some more instants of silence. Then one and more steps making their way from upstairs.

Nevertheless, Ranma didn't move from his position yet. He had been holding his breath for a fraction of second, before he understood that those noises weren't _what _he wanted to hear. Really not even he knew what he was waiting for. He was sure, though, that it wasn't this. And nothing else that wasn't what he expected, for him, was of much importance anymore.

As if by inertia, nevertheless, his hearing kept on doing his work… Silence again. Some other dull noises. Steps. The planks of the corridor's floor upstairs which were creaking. Nothing again.

Why getting worried? All the members of the Tendo family, let alone his parents, have been in their rooms for several hours, but maybe now someone had woken up, just like him. Maybe Kasumi, or more probably Nabiki, had got up to get a glass of water.

What else?

But… if things were this way, why Nabiki – or Kasumi took so long to get downstairs, meet him and heading towards the kitchen? Why were those steps so fearful instead? Why had they stopped, as if the person who was guiding them was somehow _hesitating_? Besides, those weren't Nabiki's steps. Nor Kasumi's. Not controlled enough, not enough placid: too much _impetuous_, for belonging to one of the two girls.

His father, then? It was useless to imagine it, he knew very well that things weren't like that as well. His mind made him unexpectedly wander, for some seconds, in the most secluded meanders of his own fantasy. And he saw in his head that those steps belonged to a _stranger, _sneaked furtively into Tendo's house, who knows, through a not-well-closed window for example, looking for something valuable.

But still…

Those steps were _so _familiar to him.

If only…

But it couldn't be what he was picturing.

He had to shake himself up. The 'stranger' hypothesis was incredibly plausible. So? For how longer then would he have remained inactive? Those steps had, from an exclusively rational point of view, their importance, even if they couldn't correspond to his absurd hopes. Because he had _woken_ _up_, hadn't he? And imagination had to make room for reality.

Reality was more dangerous. It could have been a cheap petty thief, unaware of being in a house populated by martial arts' fighters. But it could also have been some criminal or maniac.

He had to shake himself up, before something bad

_(again)  
_  
happened.

Ranma finally raised to his feet. He was ready to greet the unfortunate one who had dared to violate those sacred domestic walls. After all, he couldn't avoid such a duty: he was a martial arts' fighter as well. He still was despite the fact that he had abandoned the trainings the day of his return.

He furtively walked up the stairs, being careful not to make the steps creak. When he got to the top, the noises of before had stopped for several seconds, but in the darkness of the corridor in the end, which gave access to the bedrooms of the Tendo's sisters, Ranma clearly felt the presence of a stranger. The most important thing, the stranger still hadn't felt his presence.

That was the right moment. Now or never. Ranma sprang on, cancelling in a few instants the distance which separated him from the other.

_You're mine!  
_  
The figure in the shadow – not Kasumi nor Nabiki, undoubtedly – stiffened and made as if to react, as if scared. Too late. Ranma easily dodged the blow and grabbed the arm of that _incautious. _He just needed to unwind what he have been harbouring for too much time: he had to give vent and, finally, that thief had undoubtedly chosen the less happy night to – his thought stopped abruptly.

That… that shape! And _that wrist_, far more thin than his own.

_("I never realised… her hand is so small!")  
_  
It couldn't be true. Ranma couldn't be awake. He was still dreaming! Surely it had to be like that! But still… he had to know! He turned to look at her face, but the guy had taken advantage of that moment of distraction in order to escape from his grip and step over him.

"No! Stop!", thundered Ranma, who was in a cold sweat. The figure quickly vanished, in the opposite direction to the one he had come from.

"Stop, I said! You can't run away anywhere!"

As a matter of fact, that who _should have been _a common thief was basically trapped. He walked down the corridor with a bit of advantage, but Ranma was chasing him, by then sure that he would've been able to catch him. It was not long before the stairs that, unexpectedly, the figure slipped through the door of the guestroom.

Never mind, Ranma thought. He also reached the sliding door and violently threw it open, panting for the run and the excitement. Now he would've known.

Breathlessness he searched the switch, the hand trembling nervous. When finally he found it, what he saw surprised him a great deal.

Surprised eyes. Inquisitive eyes.

Accusing eyes.

The eyes of his dad, who was calmly sipping a drink from a thermos, but who was at the same time looking at him with a severity which inspired some respect: a consideration that plainly he wasn't used to give him.

The eyes of Ucchan, who was staring at him scared, completely enveloped and firmly clenching her own blanket.

The eyes of his mother, who slowly emerged from her own bed with a more pained than surprised look.

And that's it. In the small room there was no one else.

"Ranma… what happened?", Nodoka asked, with plain anxiety.

"We want an explanation", Genma grumbled gravely, not taking that _hateful_ look from him not even for a second. "Is it possible to know what's up in your mind, to wake us up with all that din this late at night?"

"I… I…", Ranma murmured, lost and not stopping looking around himself. Could it be that they hadn't noticed?

"You what? Speak!", the father replied.

"I was chasing her… I saw her going in… Why the hell didn't you stop her?!"

Ukyo stared at him upset.

"Ran-chan… _who _we should have stopped?"

Genma seemed to barely hold back a quiver of anger.

"_Nobody _has come in here. Don't you see?"

Right, so it seemed. Everything pointed at that. Had he dreamed for real? Wasn't he able to tell reality from dream yet? But still… no, Ranma could _swear_ that he had seen her! He had grabbed her wrist! She was there, she was real. It wasn't a fruit of her imagination.

"All this is absurd! Absurd!", he cried, giving vent to all his frustration. "You're _surely _lying! She can't have disappeared in the thin air!"

"Who, Ranma? _Who_ did you see come in here?", his father cried with even more vehemence.

The boy hesistated for a moment.

He took his courage.

And finally gave voice to his thoughts.

"I've seen her coming in… _Akane_."

Ukyo started. Nodoka seemed on the verge of tears. Genma seemed, on the other hand, calming down.

The rest of the Tendo family had, in the meantime, gathered around Ranma.

"What's happening?", Soun asked for everyone.

Not Ukyo not even Nodoka managed to answer.

It was Genma who got up to his feet and faced his friend. "Ranma said he has seen… _Akane_… coming in this room", he murmured, with a now hoarse voice which, at the same time, was also calm and steady.

Not one of the Tendos commented that statement. They merely stared at the teenage with the pigtail. No accusing eyes, this time. In their looks none could've read blame, quite the contrary. On the other hand… was it a sensation of his or… they all seemed to _pity_ him? And that would've been far more unbearable.

"Stop looking at me like that! I tell you it was her!"

Kasumi noticed that her father was trembling and hurried to take his hand.

"Now stop it, Ranma! You know that Akane hasn't moved from her room!", Nabiki burst out, with a harsh tone.

Suddenly Genma roused himself, grabbed his son by his shirt collar and dragged him in the corridor.

"What are you doing?!", the teenage Saotome protested.

"Now you're coming with me", the old Saotome enjoined, "to see Akane."

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On the door towered, as usual, the shape of a small duck with her name carved in occidental characters on it. Genma turned the handle without many regards and, as the door opened, the sign dangerously wobbled.

The parent turned on the light. "Forgive me, but I'm doing it for you! Here… look, look with your eyes!", he said in just a whisper.

Ranma looked inside. So he had _truly _dreamed? Imagination and reality had really crossed, just for him, the mutual border?

Akane had never moved. Akane was still lying on her bed. The eyelids lowered in a peaceful expression, she was the only person who hadn't woken up in all that noise.

_Nor she would've been able anymore.  
_  
So it was true.

Dream was dream and reality was _unchangeable_.

The lifeless body of Akane Tendo had never left its place.

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_End of Chapter One_

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	2. After the end

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**Chapter 2:**

**"After the end"**

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Akane was in front of his eyes, motionless,

_(dead)  
_  
face upwards on her own bed, as if on the verge of waking up at any moment,

_(but she wouldn't have woken up anymore)  
_  
her face serene, candid, fresh, free of any disruption.

"Now, do you see?"

It was too much for him.

"Answer me, Ranma! _Do y__ou see?_"

Too much.

"Ranma!"

The boy ignored the question of his father, who was keeping on shaking him by the shoulder. The latter, as if resigned, loosened the grip murmuring his name one last time. Taking advantage of that favourable moment, the son gave Genma a violent jerk and managed to get away from his reach.

He opened the window wide and ran away, jumping from roof to roof. When after an undefined time – seconds, minutes? – he touched the ground again, he noticed that the sky seemed to have shared his fury. The quiet of before had been replaced by a low grumbling. Several clouds dripping with rain had availed themselves of the last hours in order to assemble and were by then on the verge of unloading their burden.

Ranma didn't have time to fully realize it, when actually, drop after drop, a light rain started to wet the streets. But he didn't care. He started running again. He absolutely had to go away from Tendo house or he would've become insane. Still if he hadn't become _already.  
_

But still he could've sworn that he had seen her. Walking down the corridor upstairs. Entering in the guestroom. Akane.

That couldn't be possible.

Because she was in her room. In her bed.

Like the evening before and the previous day and the day before.

As he tried to send the memories away, they re-emerged in his mind even more violent. That little reason he distinctly felt inside of him rebuilt with ruthless accuracy the matter of facts.

And he thought once more about Jusendo. About his fight with Saffron. About Akane who, in order to save him from the filaments which came off from the body of that brat trying to incorporate him to his inside, turned the Phoenix Tap stopping the water of the Spring of the cursed pools which gave strength to his mutation. And finally the violent flash of light from which the body of the girlfriend had come out shrunk and completely dehydrated.

Images that tormented him both when he was awake and when he slept. When he was conscious, at least, he could make an effort to send them away from him. On the other hand, when he was asleep, he was utterly dominated and powerless in front of them.

He couldn't stand it, that's why he refused to sleep by then. Time after time, it was more and more harder to recover from the illusion of the awakening, from the hope that it had only been a nightmare, that Akane was ready to pull him out of sleep violently throwing a bucket of water on him, scolding him with her brow furrowed because it was their fault if they were late for school.

Hope. It had made fun of him so many times…

One of those, when they were in China, in Jusendo, because of the guide of the Cursed Springs.

_Akane could have been saved_. Nothing easier, the guide had explained. It would've been enough to use the magic water of Jusendo to reverse the process of dehydration before Akane closed her eyes and ran out of her own vital energy. He just had to defeat Saffron, after all.

Hope. It can't shape reality to its liking. Once more he saw himself. He was winning. He was shooting a _Hiryu Shoten Ha_ in order to break the Dragon Tap.

He let himself being crashed by the jet of water so that Akane was enveloped by it as well. And the body of Akane instantaneously got back to normal.

But this time

_("Her eyes… her eyes have closed!")  
_  
he had acted too late.

Ranma had _lost_.

The illusion had dissolved.

It was but the first time. Others had followed. And even dreams in which he actually _managed _to save Akane, so that the awakening was even more bitter.

In the end that last mirage. The cruelest, because he had been awake that time. And because Ranma, unlike the precedent experiences, couldn't shake off the sensation that it wasn't such a thing in any way.

On the contrary as he thought about it he felt more and more convinced that he was right, not _the others. _And he felt a new strength, a new adrenaline running through his body, similar to the one that fueled him in the imminence of a fight. Probably that was what he had to do: fighting. Against his father. Against who didn't believe him. Even against evidence. Fighting was what he did best.

Nevertheless…

He asked himself if he could accept to bring pain to the people he loved again.

He thought back to when he had entered in his parents' bedroom almost out of his mind, convinced to find Akane inside. He saw the pained face of his mother again. And the pained and panting one of Ucchan, the face wet with sweat like she had lived _his _nightmares herself.

Confusion again went through his soul. Just a moment before, he had felt ready to give anything in order to confer a body to the invisible enemy who was docking him, so that he could've openly faced him. Now he was wondering how truly high was the price for such a battle.

If it would've been such to involve _them _as well.

And if he, in that case as well, would've been willing to pay it.

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Nabiki bit her lip, vexed. By then sleep wouldn't have come back.

Her implacable calculating mind hadn't delayed getting down to work, quantifying the material and moral damage the young Saotome had unintentionally inflicted upon her. What she would've done the next day at school? She wasn't like Ranma, she kept on regularly going there everyday and, just the next one, she would've had an important class work. With all that lost sleep, in what conditions she would've faced it?

Nor she could've cheered herself up with the same businesses. With Ranma entrenched for days in the house, any air of profit had suddenly died. No tempting pictures, no suitors, no rivals. All the people who, for a reason or the other, had been gravitating around the boy with the pony tail had disappeared. And as if all this wasn't enough, even Kuno-baby had mysteriously vanished into thin air.

Fools, why didn't they understand?

Life goes on. It doesn't stop because of the tragedy of a single person, of a family. Everything flows, and the important is not staying behind. Cinical? Maybe. But experience

_("mum…")  
_  
had taught her a long time ago that this was the only way to face the world: to perceive the reality around like a single vicious circle of life and death; to remember that, even when everything seems over, there's always an 'after'.

Terrible things… happen, it's inevitable. Sure, when she had seen Ranma coming back to Nerima with her sister in such a state, Nabiki hadn't felt much disposed towards such a philosophy: quite the contrary, she had been tempted for a moment to assault the reckless boy, to make him pay personally for not being able to save Akane. Then little by little, adrenaline had fallen, making her going back to herself.

"Here."

The girl shook herself from her own thoughts for a moment, living her attention to the glass Kasumi had just offered to her.

"What's this?", she idly asked, even if she could see it for herself.

"Some hot milk", the eldest sister readily answered, as if she had prepared to give an explanation. "There's nothing better for winning back sleep."

Nabiki addressed her a cunning smile.

"If you're here in the kitchen caring for me, then maybe you'd rather have a cup."

Kasumi returned the smile with a more innocent one.

"Oh…", she said faintly. "I don't need to sleep much. You know I've never been able to do it."

"That's true. On the contrary, I demand the right to enjoy all my resting hours."

"You've always been a sleepyhead."

"But never a latecomer", Nabiki specified, sipping her milk. "There's nothing wrong in sleeping a lot, when you're organized enough to get to school in time. Unlike some people of my acquaintance."

"Well, you more than them manage not to let yourself involved in the numerous _distractions _of this neighbourhood."

"It's not that hard."

"Good Heaven, I remember though that, when I attended high school, the Furinkan wasn't such a lively place."

"Well, it wasn't like that until Ranma's arrival anyway", the second of the Tendos let escape from her lips.

"Don't be mean…"

_Mean_? For a moment Nabiki heard herself, almost as if she was two different people. And the observing Nabiki couldn't but ask herself how the _other _Nabiki Tendo, that little girl who was talking to the eldest sister in such a pedantic tone, was able to say such trivial and unfeeling things.

_As if…  
_  
"I'm just telling the truth", the parody-Nabiki of her own self persisted. "He's the one who creates confusion. But he will pay dearly his outburst of tonight: when he'll come back, I'll render him some nice accounts… and most of all my Polaroid ready to catch a certain scantily dressed pig-tailed girl."

"You know that's not nice."

"You're the same…"

The same? Yeah, they both were _the same_.

_As if nothing has happened._

Right then, Kasumi raised to her feet. "I think instead that, rather than waiting for him, now you'll go back to sleep upstairs."

"But Kasumi…"

The two Nabikis started at the same time when the eldest caressed their shoulder.

At that touch, they felt like a single person again.

"You'll see that he's going to come back soon", Kasumi whispered. "There's no need for you to wait for him in here. Don't worry."

Nabiki didn't have time nor will to rebel. She distinctly heard Kasumi's steps going out of the kitchen, accompanied by a down pour coming from outside, so she finished enjoying her milk.

It was raining outside. It's nice, she thought, to drink something when it's raining outside.

That Kasumi… sometimes even she could underestimate her, but in cases like that she gave the best of herself by showing to know how to read into the heart of the people. In a sense, Nabiki was relieved by the idea of not being the only capable of that in the family. After all, the same blood flew within them.

"Worried, me?", she quietly murmured.

Yes, Nabiki could admit that she was worried. But not 'for' Ranma, more likely 'of' Ranma. That boy with the plait, who in a spring rainy day just like any else had arrived to turn their so calm lives upside down, right now represented the greatest obstacle between her family and a semblance of going back to normality.

Now all they needed were his pathetic _visions_. She wondered how much time would've been needed by Ranma in order to accept the fact that Akane was _dead. _And they couldn't totally admit it themselves.

_(Maybe because dead ones stay under the ground?)  
_  
Even in the chat of a few moments before, she and Kasumi hadn't managed not to talk about _present time, _almost as if everything was going on like usual and Akane were still between them. That was Ranma's fault as well. At the end of the day, isn't it _always_ Ranma's fault? He had refused to let them bury or burning their sister, their little sister that after all seemed to be only sleeping. In that case, his stubbornness, his refusal to give up was infecting the whole family. Slowly wrecking them.

Why not accepting the truth? Akane _seemed_ to be asleep. But there was no trace of breathing nor of blood's circulation: her body wasn't deteriorating – and they knew the reason why – but everything else incontestably pointed to the fact that the youngest was dead.

Nothing else. Why couldn't everything be so easy? And why the hag of the Nekohanten had said _those things_…?

Placing the by then empty glass on the table, Nabiki realised that her hand was trembling.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Rain, now, was thunderously beating. A thunder exploded not too far from him.

As if it had been a signal, something exploded inside him as well, radiating in every part of his own body.

Ranma screamed. Kicked. Cried. Repeatedly hit an invisible enemy. Screamed again.

Finally he stopped, and let his knees sinking in the muddy ground.

Panting, he prayed to have given vent to everything that was burning in his veins. Instinct suggested him another path instead.

Suddenly he felt a new unstoppable need. He undid the collar of his soaked wet shirt, tearing a part of the cloth in the heat. And he angrily stared at his man's chest. In that moment, he honestly would've wished to have the Jusenkyo's curse on him.

(_"A man doesn't cry!"_)

He would've like to do that, even secretly, nobody would've recognized their own tears in the middle of those black clouds. But his dad's words were echoing in his mind and prevented him from living up.

Trying to find some distraction, Ranma looked around himself. He recognized the green, the scent of wet grass and the row of streetlamps which were still alight despite the time. He must've moved very fast – or for who knows how long – since he was right in the middle of the Shakujii Koen park.

He silently cursed. There wasn't a single place that wasn't rich of memories.

"Here we had our _first date_."

The voice caught him by surprise, startling him. Had he lowered his guard to such a point? A familiar figure emerged from the shadows, stopping under the rays of a streetlight, a few meters away from him.

Raising from the ground, Ranma recognized her immediately.

"You followed me."

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Ukyo lightly tilted her umbrella, careful not to get wet, and raised her eyes towards a sky which was a bit clearer than some minutes before: dawn was coming and the rays of the sun were pushing, even if they couldn't overcome the clouds. The girl looked away. She turned towards the boy in front of her, consequently towards the pond at their right. The tapping of the thick downpour on the waters created a strange game of ripples that, joined to the weak natural light and to the more consistent artificial ones, gave place to an unusual sullen air.

"Everything seems so _unreal, _it's almost as if we were in a fantastic world, isolated from reality… but it's right here that in a nice sunny morning you took me boating, do you remember?"

Ukyo wished memory stopped to those details, but her mind was too clear to forget the rest: Ranma had invited her just because he had wanted to follow Ryoga and Akane, in order to put a spoke in the wheel of their date.

The young expert of okonomiyaki got angry with herself: in the end, she had but added another thought of Akane to a list that was clearly already overflowing for its own self. She wondered why she hadn't stopped but had foolishly opened her mouth. Maybe she knew the answer. Maybe she just wanted Ranma, for once, to think about _his Ucchan_.

Probably she had got it wrong from the beginning.

"Yes", he exclaimed all of a sudden, as if answering to the girl's thoughts. Ukyo felt her heart accelerating his rhythm and returned to look right into Ranma's eyes, as he kept on talking. "I remember every single damned detail. Why is it so easy, if you can't go back then?! _She _was right, she had always been right! I was and am an enormous fool! A fool! Fool!"

He tightened his fists with great intensity. It mustn't have been the first time, Ukyo noted, inadvertently holding her breath. His hands were bleeding.

"Don't… don't say like that, Ran-chan! It's not your fault at all!", she interrupted him, emphasizing the tone of her own voice as if she wanted to convince him of those words' truth.

But she didn't have the courage to continue, to explain him that it was all her fault. Of her selfishness, the vanity and the conceit that came from her feeling of being the _cute fiancé. _If only she had thought about his well-being from the beginning! But maybe it wasn't too late yet.

"Go away, please, Ucchan", Ranma murmured with a tone that seemed weak and lifeless to her. The shadow of the proud fighter she knew. "I need to stay a bit more alone."

Ukyo, for a moment, took in serious consideration the hypothesis of obeying to that demand. But hesitation immediately faded away.

She started to go on, slowly approaching to the boy.

"No", she firmly said. "The truth is that you mustn't be alone, quite the contrary, now more than ever you need _someone. _And I… I can promise you that… I'll always be there for you…"

She further reduced the distance that separated them and, polling him to her under her umbrella with the free hand, she embraced him in a warm hug.

He started, but Ukyo didn't retreated. She maintained a firm grip, as of to calm him, to reassure him that everything was alright.

Trust me, Ran-chan, she thought. Haven't I always been your best girlfriend? And even before your best _boy _friend? Trust me, she repeated. I won't leave you.

"Ucchan…", the voice of Ranma was trembling. "Do you think I'm becoming crazy?"

"Sure you're not, Ran-chan! Sure you're not!", she answered between the tears that she couldn't restrain anymore.

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That's how it happened.

Ranma Saotome let his mask fall.

All of a sudden, there was no trace of the insuperable martial artist anymore, nothing had remained of the braggart boy full of himself. Just a desperate human being was the one who, abandoning any resistances, told his father's words to go to hell and, with the rain that surrounded them as the only witness, accompanied his sobs to his childhood friend's ones, letting himself being rocked by her embrace.

"Help me, Ucchan… I don't want to become mad…", he mumbled, his voice broken by the weeping.

"Sure you won't… calm down… calm down…", she repeated, like a lullaby.

Calm down, Ran-chan, I will protect you, the little Ukyo was thinking. I will save you.

She tightened her grip a little bit more, resting a cheek on his shoulder.

_And you will see that soon I'll be able to erase the shadow of Akane from you…_

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_End of Chapter Two_

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See you soon for the next chapter. Meanwhile, I would be very glad if you wanted to have a look at my account. ^_^ There are a couple of Ranma one-shots and also a Ranma 1/2 doujinshi (drawn by my friend Ran) that you can reach from the link at the top of that page.

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	3. Going on

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**Chapter 3:**

**"Going on"**

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When Ukyo woke up, the sun was already high and the most part of the clouds had dissolved.

She shook herself up, stretching on the bench she had been lying on and finding out that she was aching almost everywhere. Falling asleep in the open, she distractedly considered, wasn't the healthiest thing in the world.

As she got up, as if in a flash, some of the events of the night before sharply came back to her mind. She remembered Ranma, the heat with which he had run away from home. She remembered of how she had followed him and had managed to bring him some comfort.

Her _fiancé_ had cried for a long time in her arms until, when the rain was over and when he had probably given vent as well from any tension after a long time, he had finally given up to sleep. Ukyo must have fallen asleep not much later, overcome herself by a weariness which wasn't just physical.

She calmly looked around but there was no trace of Ranma anymore and, sincerely, she wasn't surprised. When a light breeze rose, she had the instinct to protect her arms: by doing so, she felt the contact with a foreign cloth and she realized that she was wearing a Chinese red shirt.

So, he had left her.

Again.

_("You promised you'd take me with you!")_

By then she should've got used to that.

_("You promised!")_

Everything had gone wrong. And neither she knew what had happened exactly: maybe it was because of the weariness due to the uncomfortable awakening, maybe because of the tensions of the night before, trying to remember something more she couldn't find but several holes in the memory in front of her, besides an annoying swimming of her head.

Ukyo sighed. Giving up didn't suit her, so she started walking to Tendo house, hoping with all her heart that she would've found Ranma. Even if reason told her that it wouldn't have been like that.

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He hadn't gone back to bed, that night.

He had, instead, preferred to put something warm on his shoulders and walking to the dojo.

He had entered, giving the greatest attention in not making any noise. He had rested a hand on the wooden wall then, savouring the sensation. Those four walls meant so much for him.

How many hours had passed? Soun Tendo couldn't say: he had lost the track of time and he preferred it that way. He only knew that the light of the day, now, was violently filtering inside.

So, he preferred to avoid it and to close his eyelids once more. Again, as if by charm, he saw a younger Soun in front of himself: he was without his moustache and was inaugurating the _dojo, _assisted by the joy dripping look of his own wife. He contemplated himself while he gave lessons to the pupils of the school he had just funded, who came numerous at that time.

He smiled as he saw himself exhibiting in some kempo moves in front of three little curious and a bit scared girls, with the secret hope that the will of imitating him would rise into one of them.

He smiled again and in great pride, this time, admiring the youngest daughter following his steps training with him, and turning her big lively eyes now and then in order to see if daddy was happy of her.

And he was. Immensely.

Vanity of the world… So many projects, so many calculations, for a house of cards which could've fallen at the first blow of wind. But still, placing a card over the others, he knew that he hadn't met fears, but only satisfaction for what he had been doing.

He loved martial arts. And he loved his family even more. Apparently, destiny had decided that he couldn't enjoy neither for a long time.

But he had imposed himself to be strong.

He was perfectly aware that everybody took for granted that the pain for his little Akane would've destroyed him in the deepest recess of his soul. He didn't quite deny that he had suffered, and that he continued to suffer, like a wretched man: obviously, in the first days, he had cried his tears, and lots of them.

Nevertheless, this wasn't enough to make him feel a weak man.

Once more, he reviewed his life.

No.

A weak man can't bear the pain for the loss of the beloved wife. He doesn't look ahead, he doesn't raise three baby girls without asking any help from anybody.

No. Soun Tendo wasn't a weak man. He had always fought for the things he cared the most.

He had started from zero, from hardships, from sacrifices. He had found his master in an old man who would've soon revealed himself for being a great pervert and a terrible tyrant. It didn't matter. By fighting he had managed to take the best from all this anyway.

He hadn't had any son to whom he could pass the baton of the Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu, bringing on the Tendo's name in martial arts. It didn't matter. Heaven had given him three gem-like daughters. A dear friend. And an important promise.

Until a few days before, weighing the inevitable pains and the several moments of joy he had met on his way, he had found himself thinking that fate had granted him too much, after all.

Not only little Akane had soon revealed herself as a martial arts' lover.

Not only Genma Saotome hadn't failed their old accord, but had also raised an excellent young man, extraordinarily gifted, much more than them at his age, deserving to put the families and the fighting schools together, as decided, and to inherit the dojo.

Besides all of this, Ranma-kun… had ended, with time, to become the son he had never had. So what more could he wish for?

Now, though, he was losing everything he cared for again. His little Akane. Probably _Ranma _as well. He had carefully peered at the boy's eyes, when he was screaming that he had seen his girlfriend. Soun had seen nothing good in them.

Hope is, in itself, something good. But not when it prevents from looking to the future, not when it gets deformed, evolving in dull desperation.

Soun was suffering.

He was suffering terribly, every single instant. And even now new tears were silently rolling from his eyes. But this time also he had promised himself not to be overcome by his own grief.

It wasn't important to clean his face. Soon tears would've dried by themselves. Instead he raised his forehead to the ceiling, trying with all his might to show himself upright against the adversities, without giving up to his own dignity.

For Ranma… Soun considered that it must be the same. Never, for any reason, he should've taken refuge in the comfort of a world of his own, never he should've lost himself hunting _vain shadows_.

_My boy, you mustn't lose the sense of reality…_

Hearing the sliding door opening, Soun slightly bent his head down – careful not to bend his posture though – and, without turning, followed with the eyes facing his feet a familiar shadow approaching his own.

"Tendo-kun… you don't even say hello anymore?", the owner of the second shadow asked.

Soun ignored the tone of reproach and asked his own question: "News of your son?"

Genma energically shook his head.

"None. But Ukyo has run after him and very likely she'll bring him back home to us before, in order to give went to his frustration, he ends up demolishing the neighbourhood."

Soun hesitated, before speaking again.

"Last night… don't you think you've been too straight? After all is normal for Ranma-kun to be still upset and, maybe, it wasn't the case to make him suffer more. Actually, it would've been better to get him accustomed little by little to the idea that…"

"You as well? You want to teach me how I can make a _man _out of my boy? But I think you lack of a bit of direct experience, Tendo-kun." He stopped himself, maybe noticing – or maybe not – that Soun had nervously bit his lip. Genma spoke with a lighter tone. "Nodoka has reproached me as well, before. And believe me, it's not easy to ignore the words of a wife who never lets go of her grip on the hilt of her own sharp katana. Even your daughter Kasumi has given me a little lecture… I've always said that girl is a _saint, _but just imagining her upset gives me chills!"

"Saotome-kun, I didn't mean to reproach you." Soun sharpened his gaze. "But I realized that there's something weird with you lately. Are you sure you don't want to talk about it? Remember that the two of us are old friends."

Genma laughed ungracefully.

"I really give you this impression? And to say that I've only came to invite you for a _shogi _match! But if you put it this way, I'll gladly accept the black pieces and three moves lead over you, as the most tangible proof of your friendship."

"Saotome-kun…"

"Come on, don't take it badly. I was kidding!"

"But I was serious."

"But you think too much, my friend, and thinking too much takes your mind off simplest solutions, those we have a few centimeters away from our nose." Amused, Genma grabbed his interlocutor by the arm. "Really, Tendo-kun, you won't think that I have all this will to show Nodoka her son tormenting himself and crying like a girl?! Or you'd rather see us doing _seppuku_? That promise is still valid to her, you know it. But enough depressing ourselves, let's go playing!"

Soun let himself being dragged outside the dojo, without opposing too much resistance.

He casually thought that Mrs. Nodoka had once said that the women of the Saotome family always have reasons for being anxious. Just now he believed he was starting to understand the true meaning of those words.

Genma and Ranma were less emotional than him, so it was hard to open a discussion of a certain prominence with them. But this didn't mean that they suffered less. Soun was convinced that the generally not too serious behaviour of Genma, the same cynical practicalness of which he didn't miss to offer examples – even recently: nobody had been able to appreciate his _initiative _in China – hid something deeper. All of a sudden he thought that he had understood his best friend's soul. After all, _now _he knew the exact extent of the pain of a father who had lost his own son without being able to do something about that.

_And the eyes of Ranma…_

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Nabiki fumed noisily. She vigorously pushed the rewind button then, with a quick pressure of the phalanx on another button, she took the cassette back in the playing phase.

"_…st of all, I wish to precise that I wasn't with you in China, therefore I can't speak with the full knowledge of facts… what I'll… ay… will be based exclusively on the things you told me, on the data… the… informations you gave me…_"

Pause.

Just the beginning of the interesting part. Nabiki remembered that, before uttering her considerations, Cologne had searched her and the other _spectators _with an unreadable expression. As a matter of fact, the Tendos' second born could have sworn that that night at Nekohaten's restaurant the members of the family and the rest of the "Chinese expedition" constituted a valid set of samples of the most various human emotions.

She could say that because, for a moment, she had lingered on examining the present ones as well. Some naive people, like Ryoga, totally hung upon the old woman's lips. The most sensitive ones, such as dad, seemed empty and uncaring instead. Some others who were more knowing, such as Nabiki herself, were waiting for the response with a cautious and careful attitude. But not even she could've said if the old ghoul held in consideration those so different behaviours, or if she was just having fun at their sight.

Play.

"_…Take it as …anted…that by now you all know, some of you by direct experience, the powers of the Kinjakan… a weapon which is sacred for the population of Mt. Hooh, far too much for being touched by the undeserving hands of mere mortals, that's the reason why with its immense heat it has literally dehydrated Akane's body… So…on't linger on this…_"

Nabiki nodded absent mindedly. She basically knew every detail of the trip to China. She had obtained information by any means and she had even used an _eye witness _of the events, if that bat of Mousse could paradoxically be defined as such.

The tape, in the following point, was less consumed but it also went on with several moments of silence, accompanied only by some disapproval murmuring in the background.

Nabiki remembered that, unlike what she had just stated, Cologne had taken all the time she needed to inhale a drag of smoke, under the irritated looks of everyone. Her own as well. The times when she had seen her smoke were very rare, and that _old_ – it was just the case to say that – fox was giving the impression of fully enjoying her great momentum.

"_…the remedy… was one and only one, and it had been told you correctly by the guide of Zhou Chuan Xiang. Just a water could rehydrate the girl: the one of the primordial fountain called Jusendo, or else the magic water from which the same Cursed Springs derive lymph and life..._" Silence again.

She clearly remembered, even without the help of the tape, what had happened after. The old woman had puffed a thick little cloud of smoke and in that moment, maybe with the help of the pale light of the moon, which was almost full, Nabiki had thought that she had been surrounded by some sort of aura, like the most sacred of the oracles. Even now she could almost revive that brief moment of uneasiness, and reproached herself for this.

"_…The son-in-law, not without obstacles and most of all not without losing precious minutes, has eventually used the water of Jusendo on Akane, who, nevertheless, from what you told me, had already closed her eyes. This sign is irrefutable: it means that her vital spirit had drained away by then and the soul had definitively left the body. The waters' power though is immense: actually, once it has been absorbed by her organism, it has preserved it from death's effects. Hydration will last, probably, for a few more days, so it seems that Akane, in the end, is simply asleep." _

As she heard those words the first time, Nabiki remembered that she had instinctively smiled a knowing smile faintly, as if on the verge of hearing the trick of a conjurer being explained. The fact was that the versions, up to that point, coincided and complemented each other magnificently. As a matter of fact, Tofu, to whom she had already turned before, unknown to everyone and with the highest discretion, had told her himself that it could happen of cases when soul left its natural location even though the person remained alive. Nabiki could have repeated word by word the doctor's exposition: such a phenomenon was about the _ikiryo_, or else the spirit bound to this word by some earthly attachment, and it was defined projection or, more correctly, astral halving.

_"But things aren't like this." _Here Nabiki could still feel the grievous look Cologne had sent them, or maybe just towards her._ "__Body and soul can't stay separated for a long time: there are some testimonies about this, but they're limited to few hours. In any case, I wouldn't have been able to tell you a way to bring the soul back into the body. I don't know it, nor I know it exists. Today, as it has already passed a…eek since your… turn from China…"_ Nabiki snorted: here there were those disturbances again._ "…the matter… n't practicable… nymore: it's simpl… too late… y now._"

After this, many voices took Cologne's own one's place, placing themselves one over the other in an undistinguishable buzzing. Nabiki remembered that the old woman, thinking she had said everything she had to say, had got down from the stool and had headed towards her room, turning her back to the others which were already launching themselves into thousands of comments and objections.

Only Nabiki hadn't opened her mouth, just following the Amazon before she went through the door, opening wide the pocket of her trousers then and catching the last sentence Cologne had quietly pronounced, as if for herself, with a lowest tone than before.

Pause. Fast forward. Stop. Play.

"_…ere's… othing… more to … o… or Akane…_"

Nabiki arched an eyebrow, more and more nervous. The noises in the background had become too violent to make the words totally comprehensible, without counting the fact that she herself had damaged that portion of tape further by listening to it over and over again.

Sure, the record was days old. Every attempt that had followed had brought to a dead end. All the following researches had only confirmed that there wasn't any possibility that the soul, even if in an exceptional way, had survived so long away from its body.

That's why Nabiki didn't understand why today at school she hadn't been able to think about nothing else but going back home and analyze her own material again, after so much time. She would've liked to put her paranoia down to the few hours of sleep, but she wasn't likely to sink into such comfortable solutions.

Rewind. Stop. Play.

"_… othing… more to… o…_"

Wanting to be fair, the sentence was very clear. And few sentences could be more definitive than this. But most of all, everytime she listened again to it, Nabiki thought she felt something more and more different from the wise monologue which had preceded it. More like a sincere vent, suffering also: the helplessness of an Amazon who, normally, was light years ahead of them.

Or maybe, the fruit of a _very _convincing act. After all, once he had accepted that Akane was dead, Ranma would have been free from the engagement. Shampoo was with a suitress less and, _casually, _there was no news about her since the return of the "cursed" group from China. Thinking bad is sin, but still…

Nabiki turned off the recorder and raised from her bed. Since she had to make some phone calls, she thought about picking another number from her little agenda.

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Sunset lit up the sky, by then totally free from clouds, with a penetrating fire red. So much intensity made her uncomfortable, almost as if the sun wanted to oppose the extreme resistance to the coming of a new night, which would've brought but misfortunes.

Kasumi shook her head, as if she wanted to send away those so negative thoughts, which she wasn't likely to have. She quickly re entered into the house and finished to put the laundry in the washing machine. When she met Nabiki as she came out of the bathroom, for a moment she had the feeling that her younger sister had been lying in wait for her, as she wanted to catch the least sign of external emotion on her. But Kasumi knew that she wasn't showing the minimum proof, only because she wasn't upset. Because she could've never shown emotion in such a critical moment.

It was Ukyo, who had been clearly keeping company to Nabiki before she had met them, the first one who expressed her worries in her place.

"He hasn't come back yet...", she started.

"We know it very well", Nabiki curtly got to the point, making the surrounding space sink under a heavy pall of silence again.

Kasumi felt, for the second time in a few seconds, the same sense of oppression. She understood that she was the one who had to speak.

"Ukyo-_chan_, you're staying tonight with us as well?"

The sentence had been pronounced with an invitation tone. The asked girl couldn't but timidly nod.

"Even if you would have no right anymore…", the younger sister stepped in again.

_Good Heaven, not this way…_

"Is there something you would like to tell me?!", Ukyo asked her, whose voice betrayed a plain nervousness.

"Nothing you aren't able to state by yourself", Nabiki answered, provoking the girl with the spatula. "Now that Ranma-kun isn't here, your interest in staying surprises me. Maybe you want to make our father escape from home as well?"

_Not inside our walls…_

"It hasn't been mine, the idea of staying in you house in order to help Ran-chan to get through this hard moment! And most of all, _I didn't make him run away from home_!"

Kasumi had the impression of seeing an impulse of hesitation in Nabiki, as if she had been hit by the reaction of Ukyo. But she repudiated such a conjecture, by adding to it.

"Oh, sure! Forgive me for the unhappy choice of words. You just wanted to console him, right? It isn't your fault if he has run away. It isn't your fault if you have run after him in order to stop him, just for coming back the next morning candidly confessing us that you had left him out there chasing his ghosts!"

Kasumi instinctively brought both hands to her lips, helplessly looking Nabiki as she smiled with a victorious air like a child and Ukyo on the verge of jumping at her.

But she couldn't remain so inert. She had to take the control back.

She advanced and placed herself between the two girls, immediately drawing both's attention on herself.

Ukyo seemed to suddenly calm down. Nabiki seemed on the verge of opening her mouth, but was anticipated by the older sister.

"I know what I told you last night, but now I think… that we should go look for him."

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A few minutes later, Ranma was facing a new _ghost_.

Undoubtedly corporeal, this one, even if illuminated only by the weak lights of the street and pale as the most ghastly of the spirits.

Something unreal, anyway, enveloped him. Probably gait, deep, lost, not of this world. Ranma believed, for some reason unknown to him, to see himself, before identifying in that figure the semblances of Tatewaki Kuno.

In that moment, he felt that a new night had just started.

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_End of Chapter Three_

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Sorry for the delay. See you soon for the next chapter. ^_^

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